I really
by Ruelux Prince
Summary: The Prince's heir was a strange little child. He was powerful and sarcastic, brave and cunning, kind and gloomy. It felt like you are looking at a grown man that has seen too much, has lived two lifetimes, rather than a ten-year-old wizard. There was so much sadness in his eyes, and you want nothing more than to wipe them away. /rebirth/Snape.
1. Dying

**Chapter 1: After death**

 **Dedication: To Alan Rickman.**

 **Forward: There are princes that were born princes, and paupers trying to fabricate a lie riddled with holes in the beginning.**

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There were many secrets that lived and breathed in the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

There was a room on the seventh floor of the castle that could change and provide for you anything you might need if you ask for the right things. There was a great chamber unexplored underneath the dungeons of the school, guarded by an army of great snake skins and lesser reptiles, carved and otherwise.

There was the hidden compartment nestled behind Headmaster Albus Dumbledore's portrait. There was a stone among millions that call the Forbidden Forest home that could bring back the dead.

There were the hidden stashes of sweets underneath numerous four poster beds. There were the dusty tomes wedged between bookshelves that should never be forgotten. There were galleons and essays taped on the other side of writing desks to avoid a professor's prying eyes.

There are secrets that were spoken, secrets that were passed from one giggling ear to another. Secrets that were made, secrets that were hidden and there were secrets that should not have been a secret in the first place.

Things that were originally for fame and glory, not gathering dust and cobwebs that sat long abandoned.

Things that should be remembered and admired, was lost.

Like the tomb of a Prince.

A lot of things had happened in the wake of the Battle of Hogwarts, after the defeat and death of the Dark Lord Voldemort. A lot of things had changed. The ministry reformed, Hogwarts and Diagon's repairs was finished. Death Eaters were all subdued.

At long last, peace came and refused to go away.

But human nature could not be changed.

Hidden deep in the Forbidden Forest, under a great yew tree filled with thick ruby ribbons and bushels of galaxy-bright black lilies, was a grave.

A grave for a man that was both hero and villain, a man cheated out of the remembrance he so justly deserved. No one remembered him anymore, after all those years, after all that he had done.

Only one man still came, though his visits were becoming more and more infrequent. But he still came, still brought midnight colored flowers, still talked about his worries to the beautiful tombstone because the man buried beneath it was the only one that listened anymore.

Always the one man, the man with the ridiculously messy hair and bright emerald eyes like stars. The tree and the grave watched in silence as the man aged. From a boy barely of age to a seasoned teacher and father some years later, he like all others, grew.

The lightning scar faded from the man's forehead, the branches on the Vigor Mortis tree became spidery and long-limbed, almost glaring at whatever or whomever that disturbed the tomb with beady eyes, the thick red ribbons joined by silver black green and purple.

The lilies birthed new flowers quickly after being planted by the green-eyed man and died just as quickly. A never ending cycle, vicious and curious.

Once in a while, a curious stranger or a dozen or so would find their way onto the little footpath that led to the grave. They followed it because they were lost, and was in need of light and comfort.

They would marvel at the ribbons on the big hollow tree, some messily tied by the hands of children. They would trample over the lilies and the roses and would brush their ignorant fingers over the obsidian tombstone, laughing loudly among themselves when they felt the name.

The gave was small, magic swirled in the air around it, preventing the body that rests beneath from rotting.

The tombstone was a beautiful thing, pure obsidian in its raw form, the jagged edges poking out from the sides. The words printed on the stone were cryptic and strange, but it made the perfect sense for those that still made the effort to remember.

For those that remembered, the man underneath the stone was a man of many masks. Some saw him as a brilliant Potions Master, others took him as the scary dungeon bat that took little children from their beds while others called him a murderer and villain and a thief.

He had no legacy to leave behind except fir a house full of damp books and spells of his creation, passed down from one ignorant person to another.

He was considered by a small few as brilliant in his field, meticulous in his teaching and thorough with his war efforts.

He was a man hated by some and forgotten by many.

Even if the world should crumble and fall, the forest burns to a crisp and the castle of Hogwarts that has stood for a thousand something years be leveled to the ground. Even if the green-eyed man's blood showered the Vigor Mortis tree like raindrops.

The obsidian never forgave, and never forgot.

The words etched in the stone will never disappear.

The Half-Blood Prince

1998

Keeping his promises to the bitter end

'Always'

A raven was carved underneath the cursive words, etched with a sharp blade and sword into the unforgiving stone. Of a midnight raven outlined in silver, taking flight, one last time.

It was a tomb fit for a Prince. A forgotten prince.

But no less deserving.

 _Fin_

 _Dedicated to the memory of Severus Tobias Snape. A man that always kept his promises._

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 **A/N:**

 **I originally posted this as a stand alone story but since I dug a hole for myself and desperately needed something to fill it, so I took this and put it as the first chapter of my new story.**

 **I wrote this a long time ago when I was bored in English class and the substitute teacher had us watching the Princess Bride for the third time in a week because why the hell not?**

 **I can't write on a computer.**


	2. Living

**Chapter 2: Dying, living and curse Merlin.**

 **DEDICATION: The many great fanfictions that have inspired this, and Alan Rickman.**

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 _If he could have another chance, I want him to live for himself._

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Severus Snape woke up feeling horrible, like a half dozen Bellatrix Lestranges were screeching in his ears and he couldn't make it stop. He stood on wobbly legs and stifled a gasp in his throat.

It was Spinner's End, dirty and covered in dust, just as it was thirty odd years ago when he was still just a child.

He was in his cot, his cracked mirror in front of him, paper and glass and wood splinters littered the ground. He could hear his mother walking downstairs, probably preparing lunch or dinner with the meager findings in the half broken fridge.

He waved his hand and the dates appeared in neon green numbers in front of him, just as he hoped they would.

 _1966.10.9_

He still has time.

He heaved a soft sigh and flopped back onto his mattress, greasy hair framing the dirty pillow as he absently rubbed his fingers, gazing into the mirror on the other side of the room.

The person staring back was just as he remembered himself to be.

Impossibly greasy hair, long and in quite unequal lengths. Sticks for limbs with abnormally long fingers. Bruises and lashes covered his wax colored skin. Face and nose smeared with grime and dirt. Black eyes the color of coal dust, hollow and emotionless.

In short, he looked absolutely horrible.

But everything and anything he looked and found was telling him one thing, he came back.

He came back to 1966 when he was just six years old.

Merlin really is a righteous old goat that enjoys nothing more than making people's lives more difficult than it actually is and really should be thrown into a fire.

He lifted his left hand in front of his eyes, cool black eyes marveling at the sight of each individual fingers. Beneath all of that grime and dirt was a hand untainted by twenty years of potions making.

He pulled down his ragged sleeve and there it was, unblemished skin. Red from the lashes and swollen from the bruises. But it was still clean.

All of that hasn't happened yet. The desperation the hopelessness the despair. The memories were still fresh on his mind, but none of that existed on his body.

His six years old body.

He did not want to experience everything again. He had already been hurt too many times. The hope that Lily brought him before Potter and Black snatched it all away for themselves. The care and consideration the Malfoys gave him when he was no more than a scrappy little kid with just a tiny bit of talent before he repaid them by abandoning them to their fates. The dreams the Dark Lord told him, that he will bring all of them to glory, before destroying everything they held for.

The excitement quickly wore off and he was faced with all the things he did and did not do in the past.

He curled up into a ball and desperately wished all of this was a dream.

It was so easy to believe that it was all a dream.

His life flashed before his eyes, his memories contorted into silver strings and mists as he felt the warm blood dripping from his wounds, his crafty fingers unable to stop the liquid from turning warm to cold, blood red to a rusty brown. He couldn't even bring himself to reach into his own robes and find that crystal bottle of antidote that will save him.

He was one of the greatest potions masters of the world, he saved so many people, yet he didn't want to save himself. He wanted to die, even though life was only a short distance away.

Memories flashes before his eyes, and he couldn't bring himself to stop them.

Long forgotten memories were presented before him, dug up from the deepest part of his organized mind and laid bare for him to see. To remember. To feel.

The blood felt so real, and he was cold.

He buried his head into his pillow, gasping. His vision starting to slip and he welcomed it. He died, so why should he live while everyone he knew died.

He wanted to die. He wanted to die! HE WANTED TO DIE!

His vision was blurring and he was struggling to breathe.

He couldn't see anything and knew it was an illusion. She smiled and said to him, "Severus, baby, I love you";

His mother smiled and said to him, "Severus, baby, I love you";

He saw Lucius' platinum blond hair shining in the sun, he held out his hand and said to him, "I am Lucius Malfoy, I would like to be your friend."

He saw Lily pull her red hair into a ponytail, she beamed and said to him, "Sev, you have to be happy."

He saw Dumbledore gave him his wrinkled but powerful hand and said to him, "My boy."

He saw a beautiful little Draco raising his pale little face and chubby little arms while calling to him, "Godfather!"

He saw the Savior's big green eyes looking at him quietly as if leading him to his salvation.

His warm, even though he knew that all of this was a simple illusion, designed by his mind to calm him from his panic attack.

He could not save his mother from the hands of his father, from her own cowardice.

He could not protect Lily from the Dark Lord's killing curse.

He can not take Lucius away from Azkaban.

He can no longer protect Draco from the war raging outside.

He personally took away the elderly person that gave him his salvation.

The guilt itself was suffocating.

... ...

"Sev, mummy's little baby ... "

"Severus, you will always be my friend."

"Severus, don't be so sad."

"Godfather."

"Professor Snape."

"Severus, my boy."

He felt warm.

There was a strange feeling in his chest. He felt warm. He felt he could do anything. He felt his tears slowly drying up and his fingers untwist from his hair. He felt himself sit up. He found his reflection in the dirty mirror and frowned.

There was a fiery determination in his eyes and the feeling in his chest was hope.

He was given a second chance, and his Slytherin pride refuses to allow him to just stand around and wallow in self-loathing. The blame game is for mindless Gryffindors, Slytherins admits their mistakes and learns from them. He could let his guilt consume him, or he could let it drive him.

This time, his mother will not be struck down protecting him, nor will she lose the Prince's pride. This time, Lily will be alive and with her son. This time, Lucius will be that proud and proper Head of Malfoy that walks around with his nose in the air, and Draco will never even think about war again. This time, Dumbledore will be inside his office drinking disgustingly sweet things and dying of tooth-ache.

This time, he'll make it happen.

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A/N:

I started this story because I loved the idea of a second chance for a character that I hold in high esteem and I can't help but gasp at how OOC Severus is being at other second chances stories. Severus Snape is sarcastic and gloomy, cunning and dark, hates children and believes Dumbledore's sweets should be tossed into a fire. But he is soft-hearted and awkward at showing his kindness. He cares, but will not be overly excited about it. He holds his love as a sacred and protects the ones he loves with a vehement rage.

I wanted to write a Severus Snape that is true to his original character while also bringing change to him.

Slytherins are a bunch of stubborn idiots, and Severus is willing to walk down that road until he dies for something he believes in. He will live in guilt, but he will also live for himself.

Please review.

Updates will be irregular/


	3. Family

**Chapter 3: Mother and Father**

 **DEDICATION: My ink pens that were awesome before but is now leaking ink all over my pencil case.**

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 _If he could have another chance, I want him to live for himself._

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It was almost a week after Severus woke up and he was hungry.

The only thing he had over the past two days was two pieces of moldy bread he found in the back of the half-broken fridge and a dirty bottle he filled with tap water. The bottle was currently in the middle of the living room floor board after his father stepped on it and crushed it to the floorboard after he saw Severus in the middle of the living room.

He decided to stay in his room as much as possible to avoid him.

He had almost forgotten how truly unpleasant his father could be.

It was not hard to avoid all living habitants in hs house. His father was always out, either unconscious on the floor or on the couch in the middle of the living room, or out of the house in a never ending quest of getting more booze or trying to hold down a job. His mother was holed up in the master bedroom like he was, but he was trying to salvage his leaking magic, she was crying into a pillow and reading old romance novels in a bid of salvage her marriage.

He has really forgotten how unpleasant his family is.

How cowardly they could be.

His mother was an emotional train wreck just waiting to be blown up. His father was just great at losing his sanity and temper at every provocation. They all seemed to have forgotten that there's a six-year-old living in their house! Any other child would've died.

If he is an actual six-year-old he would be throwing a temper tantrum, he would be yelling and crying and ripping apart bedsheets and smashing mirrors because he's hungry.

Being hungry is the least of his problems.

Magic.

Contrary to popular belief, only a small portion of a wizard's magic comes from their bloodline, though strong blood does add advantages to casting, but that's not how wizards have magic and muggle do not.

Magic comes from souls.

The stronger a wizard's soul is, the more powerful he can be.

Which is why the Dark Lord was a complete idiot because only the dunderheads he had to teach for over twenty years could even think of splitting their souls for magic or immortality.

Don't even get him started on the hilarity of immortality.

He has the soul of the a thirty-eight-year-old man in a body of a mere six-year-old. Which means that he has the magic of a powerful dark wizard in the spindly body of a child that has yet to learn the alphabet. Not to mention that this six-year-old is also a wizard.

So he is either going to explode into a beautiful shower of blood and gore because the two different forces of magic inside him are constantly fighting for dominance, or explode into a beautiful shower of blood and gore because even if his magic managed to fuse together and calm down it's going to be too much for a six-year-old body to handle, or he gets turned into a squib.

Or die of starvation and malnutrition before his magic can get to him, but that's a lot less likely since he is currently lying on his bed convulsing because his body fills like every artery and vein is being burst open.

Whoever said that rebirth is a pain in the behind knows exactly what's he's talking about.

And he honestly thought things would be different.

When his magic was acting up and trying to tear him from inside out, he would bury his head in his pillow and his too long hair and try to imagine a world where everything was different, where everyone was happy.

Where he was happy.

Where he was not the scrappy boy from the worse part of town, where he had parents that loved him, that shouldered their responsibilities rather than dumping them on the ground. A world where he had friends that would care about him, that didn't exploit him. A world where he could have a happy ending of his own rather than try to make up for someone else's.

A world where he didn't have unstable magic. A world where he could wake up and find food in the fridge!

He doesn't blame Eileen for what happened, as she is a pureblood heiress that had everything handed to her by either her parents or a pair of house elves. No, what broke him to Eileen, broken him even more with what she had done Before, was that there was no son in her eyes. He was merely an object, there to cement the truth of her love.

Her broken love that she held onto like a lifeline.

His mother Before would go out and find jobs, would work her hands raw and bleeding just so she could save up and few pounds that could buy her son a little biscuit on his birthday. A mother that would sew and resew her clothes so her son would have something decent to wear. A mother that never stood up to her husband's raging antics but tried to protect her son nonetheless.

A mother that ignited the spark inside young Severus, that spark for potions and spells and magic, that lead to his passion and future.

The Eileen Prince of this Severus Snape was nothing more than a coward.

A coward that believed love was the solution to all of her problems. A coward that shunned responsibility and sacrifice. A coward that put her needs before everyone else.

Maybe this time Eileen was fairly young when she met Tobias, maybe Tobias was nicer or her parents' stricter.

Maybe this time, he tumbled over to an alternative universe where his mother is a woman with serious delusions, where his father even more of a slaveholder than he was. Where Lily could never move to Spinner's End, where James Potter is actually pretty nice and the Dark Lord is not trying to enslave the entire world.

Note the sarcasm.

He knew everything was different when he was screaming names into his pillow and his mother barged into his bedroom and told him to shut up. She was wearing lipstick and there was a novel in her hands.

He heard the front door being opened and slammed shut, shaking the house like an earthquake. He could hear bottles being smashed and furniture being kicked. His father let loose a torrent of curses when he no doubt found the refrigerator to be off since they couldn't afford electricity anymore. There was more noise of things breaking, and Severus buried his head deeper into his cocoon. He couldn't lift his arms because of the magic fighting inside him, couldn't lift a hand to protect himself if his father came upstairs.

His father yelled something up, his voice slurred by whiskey no doubt, something like "women" and "bitch" and "get the fuck down."

There was a sickening sweet reply from the master bedroom-"Just a moment dear"-and Severus tried to disappear, muttering his list of things he'll change over and over again for comfort or reassurance. Who knows what Tobias would do if given a "moment" and she can't be serious about wanting him to go upstairs cause even more destruction!

She is a stranger to him, a cold stranger that did not give him an ounce of kindness. Just as Tobias is. Just as Lily would be.

Slytherins protects their own.

He is not dying for a family like this.

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 **A/N:**

To explain: Severus did not get reborn in a universe where he originally lived. He got transported into an alternative universe where everyone and everything was just slightly different than what he experienced. So essentially, everyone is a stranger to him. Slytherins do not care for everyone, the rest of the world can burn as long as their person is alright. So he is under no obligation to throw himself over her mother to protect her, especially when that mother is absolutely horrible.

So this creates a slight problem, he judges the people here based on his memories elsewhere, and sometimes his judgements are way off mark. So it is a trial ad error kind of thing, going through life with a cheating mechanism already installed but still kind of useless.

I am a procrastinator and I updated _so soon_ is because my beta is screaming at me over Skype in all capital letters.

Please review.

Updates will be irregular/


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